向内和_或向外：尼日利亚农业企业企业家的社会情感技能是什么？（英）

11325 Turning Inward and/or Outward Which Socioemotional Skills Pay for AgribusinessEntrepreneurs in Nigeria?Public Disclosure Authorized Smita DasClara DelavalladeAyodele FashogbonSreelakshmi Papineni Africa RegionGender Innovation LabFebruary 2026 A verified reproducibility package for this paper isavailable athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org,clickherefor direct access. Policy Research Working Paper11325 Abstract Socioemotional skills programs are widely used to promoteeconomic empowerment, yet their returns may vary byskill-type and gender. This paper evaluates a socioemotionalskills intervention for 4,500 agribusiness owners in a large-scale government program in Nigeria. Using a randomizedcontrolled trial, the paper examines whether trainings thatfocus on interpersonal skills yield higher economic returnswhen combined with intrapersonal skills among men andwomen. Socioemotional skills trainings overall enhancewomen’s economic outcomes, raising business profitsby over 50 percent. The interpersonal and combinationtreatments yield similar economic impacts. However, thefindings show that the interpersonal skills training improves women’s interpersonal skills (negotiation, empathy and col-laboration), and the combination training improves men’sintrapersonal skills (emotional awareness and perseverance).The positive impacts on women’s business performance arestrongest in norm supportive environments—where there islittle perceived judgment from the community for defyingtraditional gender roles—with no evidence of an effect ontheir agency or decision-making power. The results suggestthat although socioemotional skills programs are effectiveat improving women’s economic outcomes, acceleratingbroader empowerment may require complementary pro-grams to help relax gender norms. This paper is a product of the Gender Innovation Lab, Africa Region. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank toprovide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. PolicyResearch Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contactedat sdas11@worldbank.org, cdelavallade@worldbank.org, afashogbon@worldbank.org, and spapineni@worldbank.org. Averified reproducibility package for this paper is available athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org, clickherefor direct access. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank andits affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Turning Inward and/or Outward: Which SocioemotionalSkills Pay for Agribusiness Entrepreneurs in Nigeria?∗ Smita Das, Clara Delavallade, Ayodele Fashogbon, and Sreelakshmi Papineni† Keywords: Gender, Agriculture, Entrepreneurship, Socioemotional skills, Firms, NigeriaJEL: J16, J24, O12, Q12, L26 1Introduction Socioemotional skills (SES) — such as self-efficacy, assertiveness, and negotiation — areincreasingly recognized as critical drivers of labor market success.1 Seminal work by Heck-man et al. (2006) demonstrated that cognitive ability explains only a small fraction of thevariation in earnings, emphasizing the importance of broader skill sets in shaping economicperformance.While substantial evidence from high-income countries highlights their eco-nomic returns (Borghans et al., 2008; Almlund et al., 2011; Lindqvist and Vestman, 2011;Heckman and Kautz, 2012; Deming, 2017; Edin et al., 2022), the role of SES in shaping eco-nomic performance in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains less understood.Emerging evidence suggests that psychology-based programs that strengthen SES can im-prove economic outcomes in LMICs (Campos et al., 2017, 2025; Bossuroy et al., 2022).However, little is known about which types of SES generate the highest economic returnsand how these returns vary by gender and social norms (Lippman et al., 2015). In this paper we use a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to examine the impact of dif-ferent types of SES training on economic outcomes and agency for men and women in thecontext of a large-scale government program in Nigeria.2Interpersonalskills, such as negoti-ation and collaboration, are outward-facing and facilitate social awareness and relationship-building, whileintrapersonalskills, such as self-control and perseverance, are inward-facingand focus on self-awareness and self-regulation.As many existing SES trainings focus onintrapersonal s